June 7--Clinging to an Achy Breaky Heart

The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. 
--Marianne Williamson

    I offer my apologies to Billy Ray Cyrus who wrote the lyrics to "Achy Breaky Heart."

    Let's discuss this post's title. During a recent 12-step phone meeting, one participant used the word "clinging" to describe hanging onto a character defect. "Clinging" may as well be up in billboard-size letters, because it nails me perfectly. I've been clinging to the hope of some things happening which are clearly NOT going to happen, and I've been clinging to self-pity associated with that. 

    Now for the "achy breaky heart" part... I played pickleball a few days ago with a new-to-me person whom I shall falsely name Leroy. He and I ended up on the same bench later during a break, and he asked me how I got into pickleball. I told him I needed something to do with my time, I was curious, I gave it a try and I love it. Leroy said he has been playing about four months. He said, "I was sitting at home with an achy breaky heart, and someone told me to try pickleball, so I did." I sat there quietly for a moment and then said, "Me, too, I got into it because I had an achy breaky heart." Out of the mouths of strangers...

    Ready to release that achy breaky heart,

        Leta

Tuesday evening's rainbow

June 6--Our Brave Youth

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.  --Kahlil Gibran

    I found this article in the spring 2023 ACLU magazine. This is what gives me hope for our young people and our future. 

The Banned Book Club By Ella Scott

During my freshman year, the Leander Independent School District began removing books from the English curriculum at my school, Vandegrift High School (VHS), in Austin, Texas. With the majority of students being virtual in 2020, many were unaware this was happening. My friend Alyssa and I heard the news through a teacher and, after finding the list of removed books, we recognized titles we had read and loved, like one of my favorites, The Handmaid's Tale. Alyssa and I immediately knew we had to do something to show that students not only wanted but needed these books in the classroom. We reached out to our friends to help us form the VHS Banned Book Club.

In our first year, we read seven books that had been removed from our school district's English reading lists. For each book, we created a statement that we sent to the reconsideration committees–groups of teachers, parents, and librarians that review books and decide whether they remain in our classrooms. Our statements are an overview of the conversations we have in our meetings, sharing what we were able to learn through our reading and discussion, and how this aided in our understanding of the world.

Our club was small in the beginning; at our first meeting, only four people showed up, two of which were Alyssa and me. Despite our small number, we kept meeting to raise student awareness, and now we have a total of 28 members. As we read more and more books, I noticed just how much our club had grown–not just in size, but in confidence. What started as a few friends meeting to read banned books has turned into a community of confident and articulate students who preach their love for these books with passion.

When adults ban books, they attempt to silence ideas that seem unfamiliar to them, concepts that they're afraid to confront. But these books break a barrier and allow students to start conversations about underrepresented ideas and themes–and light that fire. Reading these stories allows us to learn about our society and the world we will one day be responsible for navigating. These books are so much more than what you read in English class; they're an opportunity to start conversations with other students and learn from other perspectives, and countless students and I are prepared to fight for our right to learn.

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    There's some bravery for you, and I love it!

        Leta

At Botanica in Wichita

June 5--Nappy Happy

Every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear. 
--Oprah Winfrey

They say, "If you snooze, you lose." I say, "If I take a nappy, it makes me happy."  --Random meme seen in my news feed

The only way out is in.  --Reported by Shawn Ginwright in "The Four Pivots"

    I LOVE to nap. It is my second favorite hobby behind watching Cubs baseball. I must confess that watching Cubs baseball often leads to a nappy state 😉😉

    I am digging "The Four Pivots" book, though I've only just completed the first pivot section, which requires us to look inward. I have been doing this for years. It is the foremost requirement for recovery in the 12-Step programs. I firmly believe it is the only way humanity can survive. Without a firm understanding of why we do what we do, we cannot advance past our current mess. We just keep repeating the mess until we understand that we are more than we appear to be and have the power to change. 

    Looking within can be scary, but you will only find yourSelf and LOVE,

        Leta

Magnificent lilies at Botanica...
what would life be without flowers!!?!?!?!

June 4--Artistic Bravery

The ultimate act of bravery does not take place on a battlefield. It takes place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations and yes, your soul.  --Anna Quindlen

For that is what the world needs: not persons who say prayers from time to time, but persons who are prayer all the time.  --Kallistos Ware

    Bravely living from an open heart places one in prayer all the time. While we may not always be feeling the connection to Spirit, the connection is always on, full power. Being prayer means that we recognize and live that power. It does not require sitting on a meditation cushion for hours at a time or sequestering oneself in a monastery. It is living with kindness toward everyone and everything, and understanding the interconnection of all. 

    A friend asked me to do a small painting project for her. Do something colorful on a 6" tile that sits in a metal frame in her garden. So I had an idea, and I attempted to execute it. This for me is bravery, because mostly in the past I did not like the end result of my ideas. Below is the finished product, and I'm good with it. I was not expecting a Mona Lisa on this small "canvas." I gave it to my friend and she loves it!

    Green Frog Tape is my friend,

        Leta

June 3--Embracing One's Superpower

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life--and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.  --Georgia O'Keeffe 

    I could say that this is true for me, too. There is always something to be afraid of, and if we let that stop us, we would never accomplish anything. Is not human life simply one big experiment?!?!?

    I have decided, at age 68+, to finally name my superpower. My superpower is sweating. (Did you laugh?) I walked Barney twice the other day. It was overcast, the temperature was in the 70s, and there was a nice breeze. A "normal" person would not get that sweaty. I was dripping sweat, my hair was soaked, and I even had "boob sweat"--my t-shirt wet at the breast line because my bra was soaked with sweat. There's the old joke that men sweat and women glisten. I'm here to tell you that I do NOT glisten. I believe that heredity-wise, I was born with my dad's sweat glands, because he was quite the sweater also 😉😉 (gives you a new perspective on the word "sweater," doesn't it!?!?) I don't wear sweaters because I am too talented a sweater!

    Since I can't change it, I may as well embrace sweating as a superpower. 

    So excited for summer heat--NOT!

        Leta

June 2--Creative Bravery with LEGOS

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know... We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.  --Blaise Pascal

Imagine how different the world would be if we just obeyed that one commandment—to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It would be the most mighty political, social upheaval imaginable. The world would be radically different if human beings really treated other people as they would like to be treated.
--Richard Rohr

    Living from the heart is as brave as it gets. Loving ourselves has been disparaged as selfish, which is complete bullsh(*&t. It is only with a firm foundation of self-love and care that we can know how to love others. 

    We in Wichita are blessed with a world-class attraction, Botanica, The Wichita Gardens. I visited a couple days ago because my son had alerted me to a new Lego exhibit there. I am NUTS about Legos. I've seen a LOT of Lego creations; I've even been to LegoLand in California. There were a couple of interesting twists to this exhibition. First, there were quite a few Lego "paintings." Second, things were not done quite as expected relative to colors and patterns. I took many photos which you will be seeing on the blog over the next few days. Since we have had good rains and moderate temperatures, the gardens were fully in bloom and quite spectacular. 

    Creativity rocks!

        Leta

A spider in Legos

Blue Lego Snow Leopard 

June 1--Bravery

The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.  --Paulo Coelho

    June's theme is BRAVERY. How fitting that is for a blog titled "The Brave Broad." The writing shared here is from Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of May 28. It is, for me, the ultimate description of bravery, desperately needed in our wacky world today.

Rabbi Sharon Brous draws on her Jewish tradition to name the dignity of every human being.

A Rabbinic text … from the ninth century declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, “Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!” Every person, like royalty. And yet, again and again, the image of the Holy One is controlled and contained, humiliated and degraded, incarcerated and incapacitated, shot and killed before our very eyes. How do we keep missing all those angels, with their trumpets and proclamations, desperate to rouse us to the dignity of every human being?

The call to awaken to the image of God, to the dignity of every person, has been the driving force of my religious life, the very heart of my faith…. What would it mean to build a society in which every person is treated as an image of the Divine? How would this affect our relationships with our neighbors, our coworkers, the stranger lying beneath the stained blankets and trash outside Starbucks? Wouldn’t it compel us to recast the cultures of our schools, organizations, and faith communities? How would it impact health care, education, public policy?… How would it transform law enforcement and criminal justice systems—where today judgment is too often rendered based on whether a person is Black or white, rich or poor, rather than guilty or innocent?

Brous shares a story illustrating how nearness and neighborliness lead to loving action:

My friend goes to a church of Caribbean immigrants in downtown Los Angeles. One day his pastor preached: Say you’re walking in downtown LA, or Chicago, or New York. A naked man runs in front of you on the sidewalk, screaming and cursing. What do you do? Most of us, of course, briskly cross the street. That guy’s unwell, we think.

But say you live in a tiny town of maybe fifty households. You’re walking around one day when a naked man runs in front of you on the sidewalk, screaming and cursing. And because you live in a tiny town, you know this man … it’s Henry. Last week, you just happen to know, there was a terrible tragedy, and fire burned Henry’s house to the ground, leaving him with nothing. What do you do?

“Henry,” you say, “come with me, friend. You need a warm meal and a safe place to stay.”

What does it take to shift our collective consciousness from stranger who is unwell to Henry, my neighbor, created in God’s own image?...

The challenge is to imagine a fundamentally different reality: a world in which we recognize and fight for each other’s dignity. A world in which we … train our hearts to see even the people others might render invisible. A world in which we recognize that we—images of the Divine—are all bound up in the bond of life with one another. And our hardest and holiest work is not to look away.

Can I be that brave? Can you?

        Leta